Something Kindred by Ciera Burch

Author:Ciera Burch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

TWENTY-TWO

“We can’t just leave Uncle Miles alone,” I try to convince Mom the next morning. She’s busy emptying her closet and muttering curses under her breath. The drawers in her dresser are all off track and her suitcase is lolled open on her bed like a mouth awaiting food.

“He was doing fine before we got here,” Mom points out.

“He wouldn’t have called if he was. You wouldn’t have come all the way out here if that was the case.”

“Miles will be fine,” she says sharply. “He’s a grown man. He doesn’t need my help with everything all the time.”

“But Gram—”

Mom slams shut the drawer she’s kneeling in front of and turns to me. “Listen to me. We don’t owe this place anything.” She takes my hand. “I came. I tried. But part of growing up is realizing you don’t have to make yourself forgive people who hurt you. Especially when they won’t even apologize.”

I could point out the irony. The hypocrisy. But now doesn’t feel like the time.

“What if she did?”

Mom doesn’t even take a moment to think. The smile she gives is strained and sad. “Wouldn’t matter. There are some wounds apologies can’t heal.” She turns back to her drawer, dropping my hand. She tosses a shirt toward the bed that misses by a few feet. “Go on, Jericka. Go pack.”

“I don’t want to.” My voice is quiet. Uncertain. Mom keeps riffling through her drawer.

That’s it, then. We’re leaving. Again. A month ago, I might have jumped at the chance to go back to New Jersey, to beaches and familiar faces. But now I want to ride the summer out. I want to follow a stupid idea of photographing ghosts. I want to drink free hot chocolate in a hospital café with Kat and eat peach ice cream in the park. I want to talk to my dad again and beat Kya and Marcus in Mario Kart.

Coldwater isn’t my home. But I’ve dug a place for myself in its red-brown dirt. If I leave now, it’ll be so easy to get caught up in constant movement again. So easy to forget about the part of me that feels free out here. And I don’t want to forget.

“I’m not going.”

Mom barely spares me a glance. “Of course you are.”

“You can’t just take me again. I’m not some flower you can keep uprooting and planting over and over.” I clench my jaw to steel myself. “I’m tired, Mom. Please. We can’t just leave.”

“I can leave,” she says. It’s almost like she needs to hear it said aloud. To remind herself.

“I can’t.”

How do I convince her that I can’t continue this cycle? Gram leaves her leaves me leaves Gram. Maybe life is cyclical and growing up is just learning how not to be nauseous as everything spins around you.

“Gram is here now. She’s here and so are you and maybe she won’t apologize. But you haven’t apologized to me, either. So, you should just talk.”

Mom opens her mouth, and from the deep lines in her forehead, it’s clear she means to argue.

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